Next Saturday
by WasWoksa
Summary: "So, I take it you like it." She thought he meant the view until she turned her head and realized he was looking at the polished amethyst pendant dangling from her neck. An afterward to A Tale of the Saturday That Came Twice. It's pure fluff, a sweet and airy confection I whipped up just for my birthday.


Next Saturday:

An Afterward to _A Tale of the Saturday That Came Twice_

"Your move."

"I know. Give me a minute. It's the horse-head—"

"Knight."

"—I never remember how to work him. Is it 'turn-hop-hop' or 'hop-hop-turn?'"

An audible, strangled sigh sounded from across the table. "It doesn't matter when either way you'd be landing on one of your own pieces, Mickey."

"Then I'll move the castle."

"Rook."

"Whatever. Is this okay?"

"Fine." He immediately moved his nearest bishop and captured the rook. "Check." He leaned on his hand and peered up at her without raising his head. Her brow was furrowed, and now an unhappy grimace was added to an expression already rigid with tension. He watched her decide her move and he sighed again, more audibly than last time. "Mickey, you have to move your king when you're in check. Put that queen back."

"I don't care about the king. The queen does more. I think I'm going to stick with her."

"But that's going against the game."

"Then knock off my king and be done with it, Austin. Let's go somewhere! I don't even like chess."

He refrained from any more sighs this time. Without further objection, he packed the pieces back into the red, felt bag he'd taken them from and folded up the board. "Where do you want to go?"

Her smile lit up her eyes and she laced her fingers on the table in front of her. "Let's go up to your land."

"What for?" He smiled in a bemused way and leaned back in his chair. She was going to have to try harder to get him on board.

"We can have a picnic."

"With the crunch of quartzite dust in every bite. Do you know how much wind there will be?"

She bent forward to shake his shoulder with just a shade more vigor than he thought necessary for a faux scolding. "Then let's go hiking up there. Show me around." She didn't wait for an answer this time. She sprang to her feet and swept his keys up off the nearby desk. "Come on! It's Saturday. Live a little."

Austin obliged her, took the proffered keys, and followed her out to the car. He drove them out of town and up into the mountains, and just as before, the private road that wound jaggedly uphill took them through a stunning display of flora and fauna. An improvement over last time, Mickey remembered chewing gum to stop her ears from popping so badly.

He reached the end of the road, where it spilled out onto an expanse of low-growing desert grass and gravel. The eastward view was just as spectacular under the glaring sun as it had been a week ago, when Mickey first visited the place. She was so glad not to be in a hurry to go anywhere this time.

Austin put the car in park, and for a moment they sat there, taking in the vista of distant mountain peaks ahead. Then Austin broke the silence. "So, I take it you like it." She thought he meant the view until she turned her head and realized he was looking at the polished amethyst pendant dangling from her neck.

"I wondered when you were going to say something about that." She grinned at him. "I do. Thank you."

His face remained unsmiling and unreadable. "Of course, it proves you didn't do what I told you to."

Her smile fell. "What are you talking about?"

"You weren't supposed to stay. Didn't I specifically tell you to get me into the warehouse and leave? You stayed, though, didn't you?"

She dealt him a glare preceded by an eye roll. "You told me to stay."

"But I—"

"You insisted I stay, and you gave me the necklace." She dared him with her eyes to contradict her. He didn't. "What? Do you want it back?"

He looked away. After a pause, he pushed out his lower lip. "No."

"Then what do you want?" Her expression softened, and so did her tone.

He inhaled deeply and slowly released that entire breath before he answered her. "I want to know what else I said. I gave you the necklace. Then what?"

"You asked me if I remembered where it came from. I told you I did."

"And then…?"

"And then I told you I couldn't stay anymore because you wouldn't want me to. And I left."

If she had hoped he would ask no further questions about it, she was to be disappointed. He wasn't quite ready to let it go. Not yet.

"That's all I said."

She nodded and looked away.

He regarded her through narrowed eyes. "Nothing else."

She smiled self-consciously. "Well, on my way out the door you might have said something about my attention span."

"What about it?" He dealt her a look that was razor sharp and made her wish she could disappear.

"You said it was, um, very good." It wasn't a lie. She discreetly failed to mention the whole of it, how he'd prefaced the declaration with, "You know what I like best about you, Mickey?"

"'Very good attention span.' Those are the words I used?"

"Oh! I guess if you want the exact words, I think I heard "terrific' and 'phenomenal,'" she admitted, feeling a blush coming on. _I also may have kissed you when I thought you were sleeping, but that fact is going to my grave._

He was too preoccupied with his own reaction to notice hers. He pushed open the door and lunged out, a troubled expression plain on his face. "That's awkward," she heard him mutter as the door clapped shut.

She scrambled out her side and hurried to join him. He was suddenly in quite a hurry…to start hiking. "I thought it was a really nice thing to say." But even as she spoke, he was outpacing her, wedging a distance between them that had no reason for being there. She decided then that she was tired of chasing him. She stopped.

"Hey!" she cried, loud enough to make herself heard over the warm gusts that tugged at her clothes and threatened to unknot her blond curls from the bun she'd tamed them in. "Come back here and talk to me!"

He heard her, and he stopped and turned around, but he didn't look up. One hand was clenched at his side, the other he had buried in his pocket. She waited for him to rejoin her, but when that didn't seem likely, she stopped waiting.

Instead, she marched up a few steps closer to him so she wouldn't have to shout to be heard. "Is it true?"

That got him to look up, at least. He cocked his head at her, his eyebrow raised in a wordless query.

"Was that just chemicals talking, or do you really think my attention span is phenomenal?" She folded her arms.

For a while, he kept his eyes on her, frowning, lips pressed together. Then he looked away again. "That sounds…" He shrugged, "…accurate."

"Good," she blurted.

His eyes darted to her face again, and his expression was startled, even offended. "Good?" He let out a humorless laugh, shaking his head, and started to walk away again, but she stopped him mid-stride with her next words.

"Because I love you, too."

The jaded smile dropped from his face, his jaw slack. His blue eyes were fixed on her, keenly attentive, but he didn't say anything. Maybe he couldn't. But as that moment stretched on, Mickey knew the two of them couldn't go on standing frozen and staring at each other like this. Someone had to speak first.

She plunged ahead, words falling from her mouth like a springtime deluge, a desperate attempt to sweep from her mind anything smelling like regret over her rather rash confession. "I don't know when or how it happened, but I do. And I didn't like Belinda any better than you liked Tristan. Same reason as you. And don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about! I wanted to dump her drink on her a couple of times, just so she'd cool it."

His initial confusion had faded, to be replaced by growing amusement that lit up his eyes and played at the corners of his mouth. He was enjoying himself at her expense. But he wasn't contradicting anything she was saying, so she kept talking.

"And I know you keep saying the universe is all you need, but I don't believe that anymore, and I don't think you do either. I think you're just too afraid to admit it, because that would mean you'd have to depend on somebody to stick around, when you even call yourself 'slightly schizophrenic' and 'maladjusted.' I mean, what rational person wants someone like that?

"But I don't think you're either of those things, Austin James. You're brilliant and you're forthright, and sometimes you're plain crazy. But I think you're phenomenal, too, and I…" Then she faltered. She realized there was no way she could take any of this back. "And I…" She swallowed.

She had run out of words, and in the lingering quiet that followed, she wondered whether she really should have stopped after 'good.'

"You love me?" he supplied. A small smile crossed his face and disappeared again.

"Yeah." She considered going home tonight and dusting off her résumé.

He still stood before her, intimidatingly silent, his hand rubbing his brow now and his eyes averted to some random spot on the ground between them. When he looked up at her again and let his hand drop back down to his side, a mildly perplexed expression remained etched on his face.

"There is nothing rational about you, is there?"

She smiled up at him, though her eyes smarted with tears. "Nothing."

He hesitated for only a moment before he ventured a step closer to her, drawing near enough to hold. He reached up, capping her shoulders in his hands, and settled an ironic smile on her face. "Sounds lucky for me."

She closed the last distance between them, leaned against him, entered gratefully into his arms. She finally expelled the breath she'd been holding. "Lucky for both of us," she answered, nestling her head under his chin. Her own imagination never evoked such a perfect fit.


End file.
